Over the last four years I’ve fallen in love with the banjo. It has been an interesting journey to take up this instrument. I’ …
The United Nations, in partnership with the West African country of Ghana, marked 2019 as “The Year of Return”. It was a year to honor the 400-year stint of resilience of the people of the African Diaspora. 400 years since the first stolen Africans arrived in the Americas as part of the system of chattel slavery.
It’s been an interesting experiment to consider my attention as a form of currency. Though I’m not exactly thrilled with the capitalist framework, I’ve benefited from considering my focus as a resource, and my general headspace as a bank of its own. How I “spend” from it matters not just for myself, but also for the people around me.
While I am not personally optimistic about the idea of opening things up with the speed I see in my local community, it is happening. Without much help I find myself questioning if I will be more like the Osprey or the wasp.
I feel a small bit like the woman who threw her last penny into the offering pot in the temple. This article is my penny, this column is the offering pot, the readership is the Temple. Because this is the most precious penny I have at the moment.
In my own movement through Christianity I was petrified of the idea of the rapture. The ever-imposing threat of the Apocalypse. It seemed like every year produced mountains of evidence that the plagues had been unleashed, and the prophecies of Revelation were being fulfilled. With some distance from the center of that particular flavor of Christianity, I have noticed that the world is always ending.
The below offering was inspired by a conversation with my favorite Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer and the late, great Peter Tosh. Thanks for inviting the Selah, Rabbi. Rest in Power, Peter.